“The fit-PC ‘fit’ my needs perfectly.”

Mike is a San Diego-based astrophotography hobbyist. He recently built his own solar powered remote telescope observatory and uses our mini-pc to run it. To give you a better idea of how awesome that is, here’s a photo he took with his observatory:

It’s just, you know, the Trifid Nebula….5,200 light-years away.

We asked Mike, “Why fit-PCs?”

Mike:

When I was designing my solar powered, remote telescope observatory, I knew energy usage was a critical factor. I needed a computer that could run reliably 24 hours a day, in temperatures from freezing to 100 F. At first, the only computer I knew of was a Mac Mini. However, since it was a Mac, some of the software I needed didn’t work. This meant I had to run Bootcamp. The Mac Mini also consumed about 50 watts.

This system worked pretty well, until winter hit. The shorter days and high energy consumption eventually caught up to me, and my observatory went dead. I knew I need to get better at generating energy, storing more electricity, and most importantly, reducing my usage.

I quickly learned of the fit-PC. I called the US distributor, and got all my questions answered. Within a week, I had my fit-PC installed in the observatory. Since it was Windows based, all my software ran, and my hardware worked flawlessly. The fit-PC only consumed 17 watts, barely a night light worth of energy. The fit-PC also had a small footprint, key in a small observatory.

The final product!

The mount and scope

The solar panels

The AllSky camera

Soon after I installed my fit-PC, another storm hit my observatory. I went a week without sunshine.